Google Translate Adds Photo Support, Faster Results

Traveling to a foreign country is always exciting, but it can be a bit intimidating if you don’t understand the language. Your smartphone and Google Translate can make it easier, though.

Google updated its Translate for Android app today, bringing, among other things, the ability to interpret text from a picture. Now, you can take a photo of some text — a restaurant menu, for example — and highlight the part you want translated by the app.

Google Translate doesn’t automatically detect the language based on the picture, so you’ll have to enter that manually. Also, the feature works only on smartphones running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) or higher.

In addition to the photo support, the app now provides translation results as soon as you start typing and adds dialect preferences for voice searches.

Google Translate is available now for free through the Google Play store.

Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work

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